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Friday, 20 February 2015

What a week! So much has been going on lately, a lot of chances and a lot of changes.

First of all, I cut my hair. It wasn't an ordinary visit to the hairdresser, since I decided to donate my hair to Think Pink. They cut off a ponytail of 26 cm, which can be used to make wigs for women with breast cancer. This was quite drastic, because I've always had long hair.
I love my new hair! Even though some people, including my boyfriend, still have to get used to it, I'm sure that I made the right choice.

Looks a bit scary, right?

A week ago I also received the grades of my january exams. I was a bit nervous, but I am so so happy now: I passed all my exams, yay! Above that, I even had a 20/20 which I still cannot believe.
At that moment I finally realized that I can do this, I'm going to be an engineer!!!

I also started singing again. A friend of mine came over to play soms music and then I remembered how much I need my guitar and singing. I'm definitely going to keep rehearsing and improving my skills and we'll see wherever it leads me!

Right now I really need some rest. Great parties and early lessons aren't a good combination, I figured out.. :)

Saturday, 14 February 2015

Hi!As promised: a brief travel post about
Budapest. I mentioned before that this city was absolutely amazing and that I
recommend visiting it to all of you.

There are many great aspects worth mentioningabout the capital of
Hungary. I’ll name three.

BUDA

At the first day, me and my friends visited
Buda. A great choice, in our
opinion! We got up quite early and left, taking the tram to the other side of
the Donau. Our apartmentwas in
Pest, right within the innercentreofBudapest.

Big compliments for the tram and metro
system by the way. Traveling is made very easy and a 72 hours pass is not
that expensive.

First, we went to Clark Adam Square. There we took a small train to get up Castlehill. We went seeing the Fisherman’s Bastion and we discovered that the office of the president of Hungary was at
the top of the hill. (We tried to catch a glimpse of him, but unfortunately…)

What I loved the most was the sight: you
could see the whole city, heaped behind the Donau. We then paused to eat in a very cosy place, called Piknik Pavilon. After passing the great Buda Castle, we decided to take the
stairs down. Hill number one: CHECK.

Piknik Pavilon

Gellért hill is a bit further. We decided
to give it a try and we climbed all the way up. To be honest: we really
underestimated the height of it. After a few picture stops (read: taking a
breath), we reached the citadel and the big statue. Again, the sight was worth
the whole climb.

The parliament, as seen from Gellért hill

LIBERTY SQUARE AND THE PARLIAMENT

Later that day, we took a Free Walking
Tour. Some of you may know this concept, others may not so I’m going to explain
this a bit. The whole idea of a Free Walking Tour is that interested people
from all different countries can gather to be led by a guide through the city.
‘Free’ comes from the fact that there is no fixed price for the tour. At the
end, you can decide for yourself how much you’d like to pay your guide. The
result was a bunch of motivated people, ready to discover the city. We were led
by a nice girl who was committed to her job and answered to all of our questions
with enthusiasm.

During the tour we passed the Liberty Square. I think this is a
very strange square, if you know it’s background. Our guide called it the ‘F**k
you’ square (sorry for my language), and I agree with that. In the middle of
it, there’s a statue to commemorate the Soviet Union. A bit further is the
United States Embassy located. The relationship between Russia en de USA isn’t
that great (of course you can call that an understatement) so the fact that Americans saw a bit of Russia
from their office was a bit strange. The fun part is that in 2011 the USA put a
statue of Ronald Reagan on the square, walking towards the memorial of the SU.
I just think that the whole situation there is a battle of power between Russia
and the USA.

The day after, we also decided to visit the
Parliament. From the outside, the building is extremely beautiful and enormous.
From the inside, there’s gold everywhere.
I think it’s a bit kitsch, but I have to admit that it is a nice place to
visit. The tickets to enter are rather cheap, so you should give it a try!

The parliament, as seen from the Fisherman's Bastion

FOOD AND NIGHTLIFE

God I just love the restaurants in Budapest! Some friends had recommended a
couple of places to go and we also discovered some ourselves.

Táskarádió
Eszpresszó is a really cute place and
the waitress was very friendly. There were a lot of typically Hungarian dishes,
which I liked. It's nice to discover foreign plates and luckily the food was delicious.

Taskaradio Eszpresszo

Taskaradio Eszpresszo

The next one is just awesome. Kiosk serves the
best dishes and the interior is just perfect. An old building is transformed
into a fancy restaurant, which changes at night into a club. I ate beetroot
risotto and I'm glad to say that the plate has entered my food top 3 of all
time! We ended with lava cakes and chose a cocktail from their widespread menu.
This was perfect to enjoy our last evening in Budapest.

The nightlife in Budapest is rather different than
what we were used to. They have the coolest thing: Ruin Bars. These bars
are abandoned buildings transformed into trendy places, filled with
secondhand stuff. Creative concepts, furniture that doesn't match, colorful
walls, lots of drinks,... You'll definitely have a great night! You can find them in the old
Jewish quarter which was left to decay after World War II. While walking through the district, it is
actually very quiet on the streets. Nothing is what it seems...

My favorite bar was Szimpla Kert.
This was the first place we visited and after entering, we were stumbled. It was soooo nice in there, all these
people having fun and a great DJ who played only rock music. (Yes, I'm a huge
rock fan!) The room we sat in was decorated with lots of old computer screens.
Even though they seemed stuck, they all displayed weird paranoia images. There
was a great laid-back atmosphere.

If you like clubbing, you'll love Instant.
Inside, there are 7 bars and a lot of rooms with all different kinds of music.
Commercial, Hip Hop, Drum and Bass, Funk,... Most of these rooms are on the first
floor, but don't forget to check out the basement! I ended up there, dancing
like a fool with all these

enthusiastic people. Also the decoration is quite
funny, with weird animal combinations and rabbits hanging from the ceiling.

Wall decorations at Instant

Last but not least: Fogashaz. At this bar, the
average age was a bit higher than at the others, but that was cool actually. We ended up dancing in the garden to 90's
hits with elate young people on our last night. A good ending of an awesome trip.

I really hope these tips were a bit useful to
those who're planning to visit Budapest. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Sunday, 8 February 2015

Hello!
Waw, it's been a while since I opened up my laptop. I need to get back on track now, university is waiting for me, starting again tomorrow.

Yesterday morning I arrived at the airport of Eindhoven after my trip to Budapest. To be true, it was everything I hoped!
We did some sightseeing, climbed hills to have a great sight, discovered lovely restaurants, went out, visited the parliament,...
We really had a lot of fun but we hadn't lots of sleep so after coming home, my bed was the first destination. After all, the beautiful capital was totally worth the tiredness.

I truly recommend Budapest as a citytrip destination, it's a wonderful place to visit. Friendly people, cheap food and drinks, lovely buildings and great shopping addresses.

In a couple of days, I'll be sharing all my tips and recommendations with you. Right now I'll show some pictures I took during last four days.
Normally I suck at choosing the best pics out of the huge range of photos. This time I worked with kind of a theme to avoid this problem: I focused on circles.
My goal was to show Budapest through all kinds of circles and in my opinion, this worked quite well!

I really love the view in the first picture. You can see the Chain Bridge in it. Above, you can see the soup I ordered. I was quite surprised when they brought it this way.

Here you can see some of my lovely friends.

Eggs and bacon are always a good idea.

I adore my Reebok sneakers! They carried me during the whole trip and they look fabulous. Similar here.